Fed up with the Filth

Haze continued and schools were closed on Fri as the outlook for the next 24 hours was expected to be in the very unhealthy range, with the possibility that it may even cross the hazardous 300-point mark, due to unfavourable winds blowing from the south-southeast or south-southwest. And at 7am the haze update did indicate the levels were over 300 psi, in the hazardous level.  Pizza Hut and other delivery services suspended their services due to worsening hazy conditions too. Levels continue to fluctuate between unhealthy and very unhealthy day after day and they are predicting these conditions may stay around until well into November. It is awful! We lock ourselves up in the condo but even that is as stale as can be. To make matters worse I burnt the toast yesterday! 

More and more people are wearing masks as the throat develops a tickle and the eyes smart when you can't avoid going out in it. I can't imagine how people who have asthma triggered by smoke are coping. 






Most of our students turned up for classes in the evening and across the weekend. We avoided eating at the hawker stall and just bought take away. The usual crowds were missing from the tables and the small businesses are all suffering. Only the sale of face masks has spiked.

We met up at Grapevine on Sunday evening, the last chance to see Michael before he returns to Aust and to catch up with Peter who went on an excursion with his class this week dressed up as Sir Stamford Raffles. 

I balked on walking Monday with the group, as did a good number of others. I prefer to go to the gym instead of breathing strenuously outdoors. A few stalwarts including Eric, met in Bishan and did the park and then the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore. As a compromise this was more indoors than walking around Lower Peirce Reservoir as we usually do. As well as the impressive 4 storey memorial hall, prayer halls, crematoriums, columbariums the monastery has a fabulous outdoor statue of Buddhist deity Guanyin Bodhisattva, the Goddess of Mercy. She is surrounded by a lawn featuring statues of novice monks.

It is also home to the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas and a Bodhi sampling from the tree in India under which Siddhartha attained Buddhahood. All in all a massive complex. We walked over it last year with Chen Guan and Peter. 

Caught up with both Col and Jude who are both helping Mum with her transition. There is so much to do with both her possessions and the paperwork but it is advancing. Mum has called both the places she is interested in the meantime just to confirm she is serious. Once she has her clothing sorted she will need to sew name tags on everything, that will keep her hands busy! 

On Tuesday to avoid going stir crazy being locked indoors we went into Orchard Rd to see Everest at the 3D Imax Shaw cinema. It is based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster and the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall and the other by Scott Fischer. Eric has read the book 'Into thin Air' about the same tragedy. It was good to recognise so many landmarks the teams passed as they made their way to base camp. We walked those same steps; across the paired suspension bridges behind Eric, around that Hillary Stupa with the view of the summit, through the memorials to climbers who haven't returned (which now include the names of Hall and Fischer). 

The scenery and struggles were very realistic. To me the only thing that didn't ring true was the lack of reference to the Sherpa support every team depends upon. Sadly, during production in April 2014, while the second unit crew was shooting scenes of the film at Camp II on Everest, an avalanche struck, killing 16 more Sherpa guides. The Sherpas were carrying equipment and supplies to camps for climbers in advance of the start of the summer climbing season at the time. I think Sherpas should have at least been mentioned in the credits. If you haven't already done so, go and see it. Fabulous scenery even if some was filmed in the Italian Alps and Iceland or film studio backlots.

So Wednesday we returned to work and it was announced that I will be the Curriculum Coordinator next year. This is a new position developed in part to replace the role that Renee used to do while Assistant Principal. We no longer have that position and she has been trying to do it along with everything else. The job description is still being fine tuned but I do know that I will be released from classes on Wednesday afternoons to spend those 7 hrs managing curriculum matters. I am looking forward to a new challenge next year.